So the typhoon came through last night, and most of it happened when I was sleeping. The wind picked up quite a bit, and it was much cooler than it had been, but nothing dramatic. Somehow I was picturing the tornado from “The Wizard Of Oz”. A different kind of tornado is taking place in the bedroom, as Andrew’s packing has shifted into full speed. The place is a certified disaster area.

Today I’m walking down to the train station in Futami to meet one of our English teachers (one I haven’t met yet). There are advantages to being the only foreigner around – I’ll be easy to identify at the train station. We’re going into Kobe to meet all the other teachers for a big expensive dinner. Mr. Hayashi has organized this one, so I’m sure it will be quite nice. It’ll be my first visit to Kobe, and I’ve heard great things about the town.

Last night we were invited to a neighbor’s house for dinner, and it was a great time. Their apartment has the same layout as mine, but they’ve been living there a long time. We had fried chicken (in small pieces, so it was easy to chopstick), sushi and rice, and ramen noodles. They had some chili pepper flakes that they put into the ramen. They kept the beer coming, too. We sat around the table, watched a small part of a baseball game, and talked in English and Japanese. Their son, who helped translate during Andrew’s visit to the hospital, was there and we talked quite a bit in English. His grandmother, who works as the “tea lady” at my high school, was there as well. We ate big, and then came back. Andrew has been up all night packing, and he’s leaving soon to go out shopping with another ALT, Jamie.

Andrew should be packing up his modem soon, so that means I’ll be out of touch for a bit. I’m going to try to sign up on Monday with Yahoo Japan for internet access. Hopefully, I’ll be back online soon!

Mr. Hayashi mentioned that there is a typhoon watch tonight and tomorrow. I’m not watching TV or reading the newspaper (mainly because I can’t understand them), so I didn’t know anything about it. If the storm watch is still official tomorrow, I don’t have to go to school. I guess I’ll hunker down at home and watch the rain come down. I’ve never been in a typhoon and apparently this is a big one. I hope my raincoat is up to the challenge!

I’m off to get my alien registration card with Mr. Hayashi. I got the new tatami mats in, and they look great. The doors are also installed, so things are getting back to normal around here. Andrew will be doing some crazy packing over the next few days, so I’m just trying to stay out of his way for a while.

Andrew is cancelling his internet account and sending the modem back in the next couple of days. I might be offline until I get set up. I’m thinking I can do some internet at school, but I don’t want to abuse the chance. More soon!

Justin’s Links on living in Japan.

Last night I woke up in the middle of the night to Andrew – he was groaning in pain. We did a quick medical assessment, and we thought that he either had a urinary tract infection or he was passing a bladder stone. He was in serious pain, and bathed in sweat. I dug out my international driver’s license, but in the end we called some friends of Andrew’s that live in the neighborhood.

They came over in a few minutes, but they spoke very little english. We translated what we could, it was pretty frustrating. After a few minutes we called 119 (that’s right, they have it backwards here) and about 15 minutes later an ambulance came. By that time, the pain was beginning to subside, but we convinced Andrew to go to the hospital anyway. They went off in the ambulance, and I jumped in the car with one of the neighbors and we went to the hospital.

We got to the hospital and talked with the doctor, and I think he misunderstood – he gave Andrew medicine for a stomach problem. Since the pain had diminished anyway, we went back home, and Andrew is going to see an English speaking doctor when he gets home next week. It was quite a late night adventure, and I was bushed when I finally got home. I need to practice my medical Japanese words in case I find myself in need of a doctor!

I’ve gone back to the last couple of days and posted some images from the trip over. I have a ton of photos, but I just picked some representative ones to get the general flavor of the moment. Enjoy!

As Andrew wraps up his time here, he has invited some of his former students over to say goodbye. Today we had an appointment for the people to come and remove all of the tatami mats and all of the doors. We’ll be mat-less and door-less for almost three days. Right now the house is kind of open, but I suppose we have the bathroom door if we need privacy. This all coincided with six of Andrew’s students arriving to say goodbye. They will be attending the school next year, but I probably won’t be teaching them – they are all 3rd year students, and I will likely be teaching 1st and 2nd year students.

Andrew cooked up some spicy pork that we had over noodles. I have discovered that Kim Chee is a great way to spice things up over here, and Andrew used a lot. These poor girls were burning big time – I think we went through five liters of soda just to fight the fire. It was cool to meet the girls and talk with them a bit. They’ve got a great attitude about learning English. I understand that it’s somewhat of a dorky subject, and to excel in English is almost a guarantee that you are not cool. I’ll try to change that a little bit this year.

Yesterday, we went to the local summer festival, in Kakogawa. Apparently summer festivals are quite popular here in Japan, and my timing was such that I get to attend this one. Andrew put on his yukata and we drove over to the nearest shopping center and parked our car. As we marched towards the riverside, there were a lot of people heading the same way, and along the way we met up with two of Andrew’s former students, Hidemi and Haruna.

We walked along the main drag after laying down a tarp, and enjoyed Japanese fair food. The big favorite around here is takoyaki, which is octopus tentacles cooked into a batter in a ball shape – for 500 yen you can get a plate full. They had many other types of food, and since it was so hot, shaved ice was very popular as well.

Once it got dark, we enjoyed some fireworks put on by the Kakogawa Fire Department. The fireworks were better than the 4th of July displays that I’ve seen – some seemed fairly dangerous. The crowd ooh-ed and ahh-ed, just like they do in America.

While walking around, I find that I stick out quite a bit. If you look around at the people walking by, many of them will be looking at you – some friendly, most indifferent, but curious. I find that everywhere I go, I’m under scrutiny. It’s a strange feeling. I did get some free food because I lingered near a booth – they offered me the food to try – maybe just to see my reaction. Everything I ate was great – I’m not going to starve to death over here.

After the fireworks we went to a CoCo’s restaurant near my apartment. They are a chain in America, I believe – it was funny to see them off the beaten path in Japan. They bill themselvers as a “California Restaurant”, and it was like eating in the most bland restaurant in the world. Jamie, a JET teacher that has been here a year, went nuts when he saw that they had quesadillas on the menu. The quesadilla was not that great, but he was pretty tortilla starved, and chowed down quickly. Afterwards we took Hidemi and Haruna home, and went back to crash.

Sorry for the delay in updating the site. I’ve brought everything up to date, and so you’ve got a lot of reading to do. I’ve got my internet connection working now, but I’m jumping on and off depending on when Andrew is online. Hope everyone is doing well, and enjoy the updates!

Today Mr. Hayashi came out to help with some Japanese translation. Because Andrew is moving out of the apartment, he needs to pay to replace all the tatami mats and all the paper wall/doors. It was actually pretty expensive, and they are going to do the work next week. I’ll have to remember to save up some money for when I leave. They change all this stuff out whether you stay for a year or a day – it’s kind of a symbolic thing.

I spent most of the day riding my bike around trying to get used to it. It’s surprisingly easy to get around, and the traffic is used to bike riders. I found a restaurant that must be the Japanese equivalent of Denny’s. I had a heck of a time trying to order food – once I placed my order in Japanese, they started asking me all these other questions, thinking I was fluent. The waitress was very patient, and it eventually worked out.

Afterwards, I stopped at a little temporary food shack and bought some shaved ice – it was quite tasty. The owner was a lot of fun, and we had a broken conversation about where I was working.

In the evening, Andrew took me along to meet some of the people that he has been working with. They are learning English, and they were all very nice people. We had a BBQ on the patio outside their apartment in Kakogawa, and the food was excellent.

We chatted for quite a while, and then Andrew and I headed back to the apartment. It’s another hot night – we decided to turn on the air conditioner. Tomorrow is the river festival – and I should be able to grab some great pictures.

Today was a bit more mellow. We were able to sleep in today, and just make a quick appearance at my high school just to show that I was in to work at least for a few minutes. After about 30 minutes, I went with Andrew over to the summer session to have lunch with some of the first year students. These were the same students that I said hello to the other day.

Andrew made a quick speech, and then we walked around and talked with kids while they ate lunch. Andrew got to say goodbye to some of his favorite students. I spoke with a few kids, but some were shy. Some looked outright petrified. It seemed like the girls were more confident than the boys when it came to English. Andrew’s English Club at school is made up entirely of girls, so the theory seems to hold. I made an extra effort to talk to the boys, but they froze up, and didn’t really have any questions or comments. I asked them a few questions, but I got a monosyllabic response.

After the school, we stopped in at a 7-11 convenience store, where we picked up lunch. I grabbed a sushi bento box, and went up to the cashier. Something weird happened mentally, because I was talking to Andrew in English, I was in a 7-11, and when the clerk asked me in Japanese if I wanted my food heated up in the microwave, I responded in English with a very helpful “I’m sorry?”. The clerk looked right back at me like I was from another planet, and then I kind of remembered that I was in Japan, and the brain will be required in this situation. After many bows and apologies, we left with the food.

After lunch Andrew went out to visit with a friend, and I took his bicycle for a test spin. I haven’t been on a bike for years, so it was a bit scary to navigate down the very narrow streets of my neighborhood. The cars are pretty good about swerving to avoid me, and it was an altogether successful ride about town. I along under the Bullet Train line until I got to the local supermarket, and then bought a shaved ice carton (90 yen = 75 cents) and sat outside the store in the shade and watched the Bullet Train roar by every few minutes.

This evening we had another JET over from Florida. Jamie has been here a year already and has really enjoyed himself. He’s a young guy, about 21, and really friendly. We ate yakuniku sandwhiches with avocado, mayonnaise, sauce, and some cheese, and watched “Shawshank Redemption”. The day was pretty relaxing. On Saturday Andrew and I are going to a barbecue with some of Andrew’s japanese friends. Sunday we will be heading out to the Kakogawa river festival, a crowded party with lots of beer, food, and fireworks at the river. Then on Monday, it’s back to work.

Today Andrew was hosting a going away party for himself at the apartment, so Mr. Hayashi arranged to keep me out of trouble. I started out by getting a ride to the train station from Andrew. The train station was a little intimidating, since everything was written in kanji, and I really couldn’t read much. Andrew explained carefully the steps I was to take to successfully make it – I really was going only one stop down the line. After almost making a wrong turn, I figured it out, and was on the right train to Takasago.

At Takasago station, I was met by Miss Kageyama, and we walked together to Mr. Hayashi’s car. We drove to a teacher’s office where the summer session was being held. The summer session is a three day workshop for 1st year high school students to brush up and keep in shape during summer break. Mr. Hayashi went upstairs to talk to some students, and I stayed downstairs with Miss Kageyama to help her with her English. We worked a bit on conversation, and then I checked some work that she had done transcribing a radio broadcast in English. After about half an hour, Mr. Hayashi came downstairs and took me up to meet the students.

Generally the students were curious, and there was a lot of murmuring – I stood in front of about 100 students and introduced myself in English. The teacher then quizzed them on what I had said, and I did lots of smiling and a little bit of bowing. Mr. Hayashi drew a quick map of the United States, and then made marks at Seattle, San Diego, New York, and Miami. He asked the students where San Diego was, and only 4 out of 100 got it right. Most of the students were too scared or cool to hazard a guess. After a few more minutes, we said our goodbyes.

We drove on to my high school, and there we stopped at the small lockers inside the school to change shoes. Miss Kageyama had a great time watching me try to squeeze into the guest slippers. Even after getting them on my feet, every few feet I walked a slipper would flip into the air in front of me. What a goofball.

It was while chasing down a slipper that I met the principal of Takasago Minami High School. We was a very energetic, friendly guy, who made up for his lack of English with enthusiasm and excitement. It was great to talk to him – most Japanese people that I meet are too shy to talk much, but the principal pushed through – he didn’t care if he didn’t get everything correct.

I met several other teachers, all of them very friendly. I even met some that didn’t teach English but spoke it very well. We sat down and Mr. Hayashi gave me a packet of cash representing my pay for the last few days – apparently I started getting paid the day the plane touched down in Tokyo.

Afterwards, we met some of the other teachers, and I sat down at Andrew’s desk, which was the cleanest one of the bunch… it’ll be a tough standard to maintain. After killing a few minutes talking to various people, Mr. Hayashi invited me and some of the English teachers to eat lunch in town. Myself, Mr. Hayashi, Mrs. Tsutsumi, Miss Yamamoto, and Miss Kageyama all went out for some pan fried noodles. The food was great, and like every other store or restaurant I walked into, the people working there gave me the double look, and then watched me carefully to see how I behaved. The teachers all spoke very good English, and we talked about all sorts of things. Every once in a while the conversation would switch to Japanese, and I was left out a bit, only picking out a word here and there. After a minute or two they would remember and switch back to English.

After eating the soba, the server came out and kind of hovered in front of me – I could tell she wanted a chance to talk to me in English. I smiled at her, and then we started talking a little bit – half English, half Japanese. It was a great moment, and I felt like I made her day a bit better, or at least a little more interesting.

After lunch we dropped off Miss Kageyama at the train station, and then Mr. Hayashi and I went to a coffee place, and I bought a round of iced coffees. The decor was American 1970’s, and the servers were all dressed up very nicely. It ended up costing me around $12 for 2 iced coffees, but I felt good about it considering that Mr. Hayashi had already bought me two meals since I had arrived. As we left the serving lady bowed and thanked us for coming – it was the deepest bow I had ever seen in Japan. I left the place feeling special, until Mr. Hayashi said that he thought the high price was really for the bow at the end.

Mr. Hayashi took me to his home, and I met his wife and two daughters. His son is studying to be a dentist, and lives a couple hours north of Takasago. The dinner was sweet and sour pork, fried rice, fried potatoes, salad, homegrown tomatoes, yakuniku (meat skewers), and watermelon for dessert. During dinner we had a great conversation, and Mr. Hayashi’s oldest daughter had lots of questions for me about America. Her English was also very good, and even though she wasn’t very confident using it, she could easily get by in America with her skills.

Andrew came by to pick me up after his party wrapped up, and we came back to the apartment to relax and have a cold drink. At around 10:30 or so, we decided to go for a walk, so we went up the street a few blocks and traced what will eventually be my route to work. Most of the trip is directly underneath the Bullet Train, and as we walked along the pathway, the Bullet Train would occasionally roar out of nowhere and pass above us at 200+ miles per hour.

Finally, we returned the apartment and crashed out – another long day, but full of fun things.

Another busy day in Japan. We met in the lobby of the hotel and then boarded a bus to the Tokyo Shinkansen station. The station was pretty old, and I think the sight of 80 foreigners walking through the station caused a bit of a stir. We walked down the train station and got aboard the bullet train. The train itself was very clean and modern, and we had almost an entire car to ourselves. Our prefecture even sprang for lunch, which consisted of a couple of vegetarian sandwiches and a box of orange juice.

The train moved pretty fast – I think it goes between 150 and 250 miles per hour. We moved quite quickly through the countryside – and the variation from the flat city terrain that we saw in Tokyo was dramatic. There were very steep hillsides shrouded in fog, little fishing villages near the ocean, towns nestled into mountainsides, and large towns like Kyoto and Nagoya. The ride itself was fairly long, but before we knew it we were getting off in Osaka. Our guide warned us that we had less than one minute to get off the train – they don’t wait around too long here in Japan.

At Osaka station we boarded two large buses, and headed to Yashiro. The drive was about an hour long, and the everyone on the bus was starting to get nervous. Many would be meeting their bosses for the first time. I had already talked to not only my boss but also my predecessor, so I wasn’t quite so worried. Still, there was a bit of tension as we got off in Yashiro.

We were marched single file into a large conference room and lined up to face a large group of somewhat stern looking Japanese people. Withing a few seconds I had identified my predecessor, and he was accompanied by my Master Teacher, Mr. Hayashi. One by one, each JET’s name was called, and then a Japanese person would get up, conduct awkward introductions in English, and claim the JET and take them out to their car. Once they finally called my name, I was able to introduce myself to Andrew and Mr. Hayashi and head out. My luggage was waiting for me outside in the sun – I picked it up, and we were off.

We first drove to Akashi-shi, where Mr. Hayashi lives. He pointed out the sights as we went, and it was my first up close and personal look at the Japanese countryside. Rice paddies, pachinko parlors, they’ve got it all. I couldn’t believe how many udon noodle places there were!

We stopped at Mr. Hayashi’s house first, and dropped him off. From there Andrew and I went to to the nearest convenience store – we were both starving. We grabbed some sushi to go, and then went back to his/my apartment in Futami.

The apartment was better than I could have hoped. It’s very large, with a great setup. It clean, and in great condition. There are four main rooms, with a shower/bath and a bathroom adjoining the dining room/kitchen. There is a nice patio, and some well placed windows that ventilate the place nicely. I’m not sure how I’m going to use all the space – I’ve got my bedroom staked out, and the kitchen/dining room is obvious enough, but that still leaves me with two rooms to spare.

I’m going to be living out of my suitcase the next couple of days – I’m going to wait to spread out until Andrew moves out officially on the 12th of August.

After hauling my 140 pounds of luggage upstairs to the apartment, Andrew and I relaxed a bit, and then we left for Mr. Hayashi’s house to pick him up. We stopped by to pick up another teacher, Kuniko Kageyama, who is a part-time English teacher at my high school. Together we went to a restaurant that specialized in Andrew’s favorite dish – okonomiyaki. Okonomiyaki is a combination of a pancake, and pizza – it’s texture is that of a pancake, but it has bacon cooked across the top, and then bits of octopus and other seafood baked into it. It’s topped with a slightly sweet sauce, fish flakes, and some Japanese mayonnaise. It’s served hot on a burner that is built into your table. The okonomiyaki was great – we had a couple of beers with it, and it was a great way to end a long day.

We returned home to the apartment, and I hit the sack and promptly fell asleep.

Today was the second day of orientation, and all the participants from countries other than the United States were invited to their respective embassies for a reception and general advice. The United States embassy does not observe “embassy night”, and so we had no obligations.

The orientation itself was very well done today, much better than yesterday. The most interesting session was the meeting with our prefecture – they gave us information about how we were getting to our homes the following day. They passed out a ton of information, which joined the other information we’ve been gathering for the past two days. I hope that sometime soon I’ll be able to sit down and do some information digestion.

We’re going to take the bullet train to Osaka, by way of Nagoya and Kyoto. From Osaka station, we’re to head by bus to a town called Yashiro, where we’ll meet a representative from our school. I had already heard from Andrew, my predecessor, that he would meet me sometime on Wednesday, so it sounds like it will be in Yashiro.

After the orientation completed, I did a quick repack of all my stuff and dropped off my luggage to be shipped on to Hyogo. With my remaining clothing selection extremely limited, I went back to my room and watched a little Japanese baseball – the Hanshin Tigers lost to Yokohama. Tomorrow I’m getting up early to get some breakfast and then head to the Shinkansen station.

What an overwhelming experience. Being in Japan is amazing. The town is always active, and people are everywhere. The Japanese seem to have a different take on everything that I take for granted.

Today I went across the street from the hotel during a break to have lunch with another JET. We (literally) ducked into a small (and I’m talking small) restaurant, and proceeded to order by pointing. My Japanese language ability was enough to get us answers to some questions (is that meat? fish? is that so? thank you!), but soon afterwards we are eating several dishes of food that neither of us could identify. The food was excellent, and the service is better than most American restaurants, and you can’t even tip to reward the great service.

Perhaps the most surreal part was that we are in a restaurant where nobody speaks English. Outside people by the hundreds are walking by, and very few if any speak English. It really makes you realize that you are on your own, and you need to use your wits, flexibility, and money to get you through simple everyday situations.

I ate breakfast today with some Midwestern-Americans, and a Canadian. I had a great conversation with some people from the UK, and there are some really nice Irish folks here, too. It’s been great talking and associating with people from such varied and unique backgrounds. They bring a new perspective to events around the world, and it feels good to expand your thoughts beyond your own country.

The orientation today was pretty good. There was a bit more of a focus on the teaching aspect of your job, and some of the lectures went a bit long. We watched a great movie showing a JET in action in several different schools. Some of it was painful to watch, but it looked like a lot of fun. I think the teaching will be difficult at first, and then become more second nature soon after. Also, they had put together some optional seminars, but I was pretty disappointed. They are presented by current JETs, but they seem heavier on the anecdotal than on the practical.

Tonight is the big reception, and tomorrow is another day of presentations. My roommate and I are considering going over to the electronics part of town to look at all the brand new goodies in Tokyo. Neither of us are looking to buy anything, but we heard that it’s a must see. We also were looking at “Kirin City”, a beer garden on top of a department store downtown. I’m trying to pick out memorable things to see and do, because very soon I’ll be leaving for my prefecture, and it might be a while before I make it back to Tokyo.